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9 Belgian Images of the Psycho-Pedagogical Potential of the Congolese during the Colonial Era, 1908–1960* M. Depaepe ❙ ❙ Starting from the Belgian (educational) Historiography of Congo It would be unfortunate if ISCHE, the international organization for the history of education, did not heed the colonial experience. Not only is this theme of research international by definition, it is also clearly an educational phenomenon of the first order: by means of education, the intention was to “convert” and to “civilize” the autochthons, which, willingly or unwillingly, was accompanied by the imposition of a number of elements of the “Western” way of life and thought.1 With these words in 1995, I rounded off the opening of the fifteenth ISCHE conference, which had been organised in Lisbon on the colonial experience in education. Nevertheless, it was another 12 years before this theme would again appear on the international forum of the history of education. Actually, that occurred only at a pre-ISCHE conference, which stood virtually entirely apart from the main conference.2 As Gary McCulloch stated in the opening lecture, the basic idea for the symposium was situated in the complex interrelation between social change and the * Originally published in: Paedagogica Historica, XLV,6 (2009) 707-725 1 Marc Depaepe, “An Agenda for the History of Colonial Education,” in The Colonial Experience in Education. Historical Issues and Perspectives, ed. António Nóvoa, Marc Depaepe and Erwin V. Johanningmeier (Gent: CSHP, 1995) (Paedagogica Historica. Supplementary Series, vol. 1), 20. 2 International symposium organised by the History of Education Society (UK), entitled “‘Empires Overseas’ and ‘Empires at Home’: Postcolonial and Transnational Perspectives on Social Change in the History of Education,” University of Hamburg, 24–25 July 2007, immediately preceding the ISCHE Conference. For the historiographical context as well as the relationship with ISCHE, see the introduction to this collection by Joyce Goodman, Gary McCulloch and William Richardson, ‘“Empires Overseas’ and ‘Empires at Home’: Postcolonial and Transnational Perspectives on Social Change in the History of Education – Starting Points.” Part III: The Colonial Context – From Educationalization to Appropriation? 202 history of education. The stress, moreover, was on the cultural imperialism that, in the framework of the “empires” – a title that, understandably, seemed to refer first and foremost to the British colonial experience3 – might operate at home and abroad.4 The examination of the mutual relationship between “Empires Overseas” and “Empires at Home” is certainly very valuable, also and particularly for educational historiography. All too often, colonisation and the mission work linked to it, which itself in essence had educational significance, is presented as a kind of one-way traffic from the civilised North to the South (or from the West to the East). However, it is self-evident that the cross-cultural contact with “the other” in the former colonial regions (in the case studied here, the Congo) also influenced the psycho-pedagogical construction of “the self” in the mother country (in 3 See, for example, the policy of “indirect rule” by Frederick Lugard (1858–1945) in British Nigeria and its consequences for education: Philip Serge Zachernuk, “African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Schools,” Africa 68 (1998): 484–505. Within the international context, the Belgian colonial experience in Africa was rather peculiar. Ideologically as well as strategically, it did not match with the old French ideas of “assimilation ,” nor with the “adaptation” theories from which the policy of “indirect rule” was derived. Following Marvin D. Markowitz, Cross and Sword. The political role of the missions in the Belgian Congo (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1973) the colonial policy in education of the Belgians can best be depicted as “educational gradualism .” The Belgians strove for a gradual “development” of the autochtons in view of the local “needs,” but these needs were stipulated within the colonial framework of the Belgians. A whole army of Catholic missionaries was sent to the colony to fulfill that “civilisation task,” which formed the moral complement of colonisation. Education belonged to sphere of evangelisation. The local people had to be converted and socialised as well as possible by education. One of the main objectives was to make them docile helpers of the colonial system. Broadening of horizons of awareness was certainly not at stake. Insofar as critical thinking ultimately happened to be promoted, it was not much more than an undesirable side effect. The cooperation between the church and the state in educational policy, sealed by the conventions of 1906 between the Congo Free State and the Holy See...

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